Beyond the limitations of best practices: How logic analysis helped reinterpret dual diagnosis guidelines [An article from: Evaluation and Program Planning]

This digital document is a journal article from Evaluation and Program Planning, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The co-occurrence of mental health and substance use disorders is becoming increasingly recognized as a single problem, and professionals recognize that both should be addressed at the same time. Medical best practices recommend integrated treatment. However, criticisms have arisen, particularly concerning the difficulty of implementing integrated teams in specific health-care contexts and the appropriateness of the proposed model for certain populations. Using logic analysis, we identify the key clinical and organizational factors that contribute to successful implementation. Building on both the professional and organizational literatures on integrated services, we propose a conceptual model that makes it possible to analyze integration processes and places integrated treatment within an interpretative framework. Using this model, it becomes possible to identify key factors necessary to support service integration, and suggest new models of practice adapted to particular contexts.